Rare breed at housing

For three years, nobody really believed what had been pledged by the current dispensation — 6.15 million housing units for its housing program in six years.

It sounded less like policy but like the promised P20-per-kilo rice — a slogan looking for a budget.

By the end of 2023, only some 13,000 units had been completed. The Pambansang Pabahay Para sa Pilipino (4PH) was built around high-density vertical towers the poor could not afford, and it stalled on land, funding, and timelines.

To his credit, President Marcos eventually admitted the obvious. In May 2025, he relieved Jose Acuzar, the housing secretary, and promoted the undersecretary, Jose Ramon Aliling, who had a real construction background.

Aliling did what good managers do: He cut the target to a defensible 1.133 million units by June 2028, then changed the method of implementation.

The results are hard to argue with. As of this month, nearly 600,000 units have been built or financed. Aliling widened the menu with horizontal subdivisions, rental housing, incremental housing, and temporary shelters, so that a program once aimed at one income bracket now speaks to several.

The Pag-IBIG Fund’s 3-percent subsidized rate, rent-to-own schemes, and private-sector partnerships addressed the very complaints that sank the original design. Social Weather Stations recorded survey respondents’ satisfaction with the administration’s housing program for the poor rising from a “moderate” +38 in late 2025 to a “good” +48 by mid-2026. Few government programs in this, or any administration, climb that far in under a year.

The most telling proof is in Imus, Cavite, where Megawide’s Avesta Residences topped off 10 months after construction began. Ninety to 95 percent of the structure is made in a Taytay, Rizal factory and assembled on site. Backed by a P10-billion Pag-IBIG investment, Megawide is scaling toward 25,000 units a year.

The bottleneck is no longer in the building pace, but in how fast the government can deliver land and permits. Then there is the P3-million condo scheme, arguably the smartest idea in the program.

Developers are sitting on billions in unsold Metro Manila inventory. The poor need homes.

Aliling’s answer has Ayala Land, Robinsons Land, SM Prime and Megaworld selling existing units at P3 million or less to qualified buyers, with Pag-IBIG financing.

Developers get relief from their frozen capital, and the discounted units count toward their socialized housing obligation. Buyers, including OFWs and BPO workers, get subsidized rates. It works only if the discounts are real and the buyers are the intended ones, so it deserves close monitoring.

Which raises the question of what to do with a competent secretary?

First, perhaps, the President should give him more things to fix. Aliling has shown he can turn a failing program into a functioning one by trimming ambition, changing methods, and partnering with those who can actually deliver.

Government has no shortage of programs that fit that description. Infrastructure delivery and flood control come to mind, where a builder’s discipline and a clean record would be worth more than another task force.

Second, should he run for office? Resist the temptation. Philippine politics has a long record of consuming technocrats who were good at their jobs. Competence in the executive branch does not guarantee success at the ballot box, and the country has too few people who can build things to waste them on campaigns. Being a good secretary does not make one a good candidate.

Third, and most important, the next President in 2028 should keep Aliling and put his services to good use. Housing is a multi-year enterprise, and the greatest threat to 4PH is not failure but the customary transition, where each new administration discards its predecessor’s people and starts over.

There is abundant reason for believing Aliling would hit his deadline just as the next administration takes office. A successor who retains him would simply be protecting a working investment.

Competent officials with clean hands are rare enough in government, and we should not waste them. Hopefully, the momentum of the ambitious program he has been tasked to handle continues, and so does Aliling.